שני שעירי יום הכיפורים בפרשת העקידה | הרב אליהו ובר

Holy people of Israel say Selichot according to the Ashkenazi custom, for this week we recite the Selichot. And in the Selichot, everyone asks according to the Ashkenazi custom, so in the Selichot everyone says: Master of the Universe, bring us to Your holy mountain and gladden us in Your house of prayer, as it is written: And I will bring them. To My holy mountain and gladden them in My house of prayer, their burnt offerings and sacrifices shall be accepted. As if in prayer He called to all nations, and then we say: Hear our voice, O Lord our God, spare us and have mercy upon us. The Holy One , blessed be He, said: I have heard, I have heard your prayer; this is what you requested—I have heard your prayer. Go to the Mikvah, come, I have heard your prayer, the prayer has been accepted. So everyone who prayed, know this: whoever is here has already heard ; apparently, the Holy One, blessed be He, said: I have heard his prayer. Whoever is not here, let them hear, and not metaphorically, but a divine voice went out and said: People of Israel, I have heard your prayer, I have answered your request, you may come to the Holy Mountain, everything is fine, just immerse, of course, in the Mikvah. Come as is proper, see the Temple and everything is fine. So that’s it, we have done it. In short, we—I just want to shed some light on the weekly Torah portion. The observation I am now sharing, I heard its basis from Rabbi Itai Litzur, something remained there, I don't know, uh, I heard the basis of it from him. Uh, we have in the Torah reading on Rosh Hashanah: we read two parts. The first part is the story of Abraham our father, God remembered Sarah, and the second part is the Binding of Isaac. But he once shared an interesting distinction and upon it I am building. At the end of the section where God remembered Sarah, there is the story where Abraham our father sends away Ishmael: "So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, placing it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away." After that, in the Binding, it is also written: "So Abraham rose early in the morning." Yes , so there are two instances of taking; Abraham our father rises early in the morning. Three times in the case of him rising early in the morning, but two times are: one time when he takes and sends away Ishmael, and the second time is when he brings Isaac to the Binding. So he told me an interesting distinction that throughout the generations, the commentators explained the subject of the scapegoat, connecting it to Esau. He says there is something interesting here: there are two sons of Abraham our father, And Abraham our father sends one to the desert and one he takes to the altar, and it reminds us a bit of the two goats of Yom Kippur. Uh, and indeed here, up to here is more or less what I heard from him, I don't remember exactly which part of what I am saying now is what I added. Our Sages say, they interpret that when God said to him: "Abraham, take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac," meaning He says to him "take your son," Abraham says: "I have two sons.""Your only one, " he says: "Both are only sons, this one is the only one to Hagar and this one is the only one to Sarah.""Whom you love," he says: "I love them both." Three things are similar—the two goats of Yom Kippur are equal in appearance, height, and price. They are equal in three things, just as Isaac and Ishmael were similar; there was no need to choose between them, yet Isaac was taken. So we have here one son who is sent away: "He took bread and a bottle of water and gave it to Hagar." In the Mishnah in Yoma, it is written that when they take the scapegoat, they say at every booth: "Here is food, here is water.""He took bread and a bottle of water and gave it to Hagar"—yes, so when sending the child, one must provide food and water at every booth, and naturally, he is sent to the precipice; so there is one child who is sent to Azazel, the scapegoat. And there is the child who is brought up to the altar, and after he is brought up to the altar, what is actually brought in the Temple immediately after? A ram for a burnt offering; what does our father Abraham bring? A ram. A ram for a burnt offering. That is to say, there is a very, very beautiful comparison here between the two young men, and this is what we read on the two days of Rosh Hashanah: on the first day we read of one goat, and on the second day we read of the second goat. And indeed, after the first goat, there is a dispute among the Tannaim as to when the seven lambs of the Yom Kippur additional offerings are brought. One says that the seven lambs are brought before the daily offerings, but that is the view of Rabbi Eliezer in the Mishnah; in the Jerusalem Talmud, it is written that this is the view of the Sages. This is how all the writers of the liturgical poems truly believed, for they followed the Jerusalem Talmud, that the seven lambs are brought immediately after. Why? Because just as we said that after the scapegoat comes a ram, so too after the scapegoat come the seven lambs with which a covenant is made, seven lambs with which a covenant is made with the King. Thus it turns out that these two Torah portions that we read on Rosh Hashanah, besides being the essence of the day of Rosh Hashanah, are also a certain preparation for Yom Kippur. And I will just touch upon the subject of the Shofar. It is written in the Gemara: Why do we bring a ram's horn? Because we want to remember the Binding of Isaac, son of Abraham. And it is connected to the fact that on Rosh Hashanah, we come and stand before God. Here, oh, there needs to be a double reading here; we stand on Rosh Hashanah before the Lord, and we blow the Shofar , and we bring ourselves before God. We choose Him, as we come and bring ourselves before God. May the Holy One, blessed be He, help us merit to truly come on Rosh Hashanah. This year still, as long as there is no Sanhedrin, we have two days, so may we merit on both days to come here, to blow the Shofar, and to hear every Shofar blast before the King, God. Therefore, may it be His will, and let us say Amen. Please note that there is also a bride with us. Ah, mazel tov. Ah, she is building her home tomorrow; there is a bride with us, and this is a place from which God commanded the blessing of life forevermore, from here all blessing comes to all of the people of Israel, so may this place bless the bride to build her home, a faithful home in Israel. A home of love and brotherhood and peace and friendship, a home of joy and happiness and wealth, a home of sons and daughters, a home of Torah and fear of Heaven. Amen. May you, the bride, together with your future husband, the groom, merit to build a faithful home in Israel, and may you, bride, merit to return here within a year with a newborn, a cute baby in a carriage, blossoming; may it be His will, and let us say amen.